


You Turn Clear in the Sun

by karrenia_rune



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Early in Canon, Gen, Trees, Winter Solstice, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 11:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5495963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Orkney boys go out one December morning for the annual Yule Tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Turn Clear in the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red Mercutio (Gone_Rogue)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Red+Mercutio+%28Gone_Rogue%29).



Disclaimer: the world of Arthurian Legends is not mine nor are the characters which appear here or are mentioned. They are only 'borrowed' for the purposes of the story.  
Written for red Mercutio as an extra treat for yule 2015. 

"You Turn Clear in the Sun"

They were advantages to being small and or slight of build; for one thing one tended to make less noise when approaching others, and for another, it meant the copse of trees on a high hillside made for better concealment. 

For another he could plainly hear the crunch of heavy booted footsteps and the intermittent good-natured cursing and whistling of his eldest brother, Gawain, long before he came upon him.  
When Mordred arrived at the copse of trees they had agreed upon to select the Yule tree for the annual winter solstice festival, Gawain, Gareth, and Gaheris had already arrived. Gareth's open and cheerful face was red and welcoming when he was the first to spot Mordred and waved him over to where they stood. 

Snow was falling heavily and the axes and the sled that the three of them had brought along for the express purpose of the dragging the tree back to the castle waited off to one side.  
"Ho, brother, we were standing to worry that you would not make it" Gareth cried.

Mordred put on a look of hurt dignity and slammed a mittened hand to his chest right where his heart was located, "You wound me grievously, brother. Why I would not miss this outing for the world."

"Come on, Mordred, you can tease Gareth's delicate sensibilities later. We've got work to do," added the sensible Gaheris.

To look at the four of them, a casual passerby would not have known that they were brothers, three fair-skinned and with reddish hair that came by the way of their crimson-crowned mother, Queen Morgause wife of King Lot of Orkney. 

Then there was Mordred, dark and slight like one of the Old People of fire-side tales. Normally, this marked difference would have been the cause of acrimony and speculation. But for once, no one said gathered here seemed to care, or at the very least they had, by unspoken agreement decided that it did not matter.

"I've never bet out for a Yule Tree before!" exclaimed Gareth in mounting and almost barely contained excitement: "What do we do first?"

"First, you make your equipment is in good working order," Gawaine replied, and for starters, your cap is on backward. Gawain bent over and set the offending head-wear as best he could while thirteen-year-old Gaheris squirmed impatiently."

"While you're doing that, I'll look to the sled," Gaheris added.

"What would you like me to do?" asked Mordred.

"Your the best with identifying types of woods and directions, so you'll be the one to be our scout and look for the right tree. I think yet is traditional, but if we can't find yew look for fir or pine."

"I can do that!" Mordred agreed. "Which way?"

Gawain, having finished setting Gareth's hat, shuffled his feet and rubbed his forehead. He was a big-boned tall man with bright blue eyes and friendly open demeanor that endeared him to his younger brothers and when he had come to the Camelot Court; had also lent much to both the high-born and the common people alike. 

Gawain was just one of those people who became instantly likable. Gentle for all of his size and strength, but a good fighter when it became necessary. However, he did not possess a good sense of direction.

"I heard Mother say that moss always grows on the north side of trees. What direction are we facing right now?" Gareth said.

"The boy's right," Mordred said. "We go north."

"The slopes look to get steeper the further north we go," Gaheris added as he stood and with one hand level with his brow, to shade his eyes from the brittle winter sunshine, "On the snowfall looks to be coming down much more heavily once the sun sets."

"Then it's settled, but we'll mark our present position so we don't get lost," said Gawain.

"Good idea," Gaheris replied. Where Gawain as tall, and stocky, Gaheris was a smaller version of his big brother, but where Gawain had gotten the muscle, Gaheris got common-sense, and Gareth was still much too young to start training to be a knight. And if their mother had her way, he more than likely would never get a chance. 

Sometimes Mordred thought it was more than the fact than a mother's concern that her youngest child not find a path in the glittering, but often dangerous world of knighthood; it might also have something to do with Morgause's own, not bitterness, not resentment, but something he had as yet been unable to determine; that she harbored towards King Arthur and Camelot.

He shoved the unsettling thought to a back corner of his mind and determined that he would not harbor such ill-thoughts on a bright December morning such, and especially when he was with his brothers, out on an errand such a this one.

They gathered their belongings and with Gaheris taking up the leather leads tied to the sled the Orkney boys trudged up the snowy slopes.  
Mordred and Gawain the lead, with Mordred scanning the copes of trees for just the right tree.

The sun, dipping down below the tree-line finally vanished, but there still was enough light to see by when they came across a grove of yews that were the right size and configuration. "How about those!" exclaimed Mordred.

Gareth broke away from the knot of his brothers and streaked toward the copse, heedless of the noise and the bevy of quails that rose up a stand of bracken, screeching irritably in the wake of his rapid passage across the snow-covered ground.

Scanning the trees carefully but rapidly, Gaheris called out to his brothers to hurry, he had found the perfect one.

"We're coming, don't make so much noise," Gaheris replied, as he came up even with Gareth. The others following along.

"Will it suit?" Gareth asked Mordred.

"I think it will," Mordred replied in answer to Gareth's question.

"All right then, Gaheris get out the hand-axes, and then resin to coat your hands. This could get sticky and make sure that whatever you do, don't get in the way of the falling tree," Gawain began.  
Gaheris bent down and scooped up a double handful of snow, fusing it into a ball and aimed at Gawain's head, then threw.

"Och!" What was that for?" bellowed Gawain.

"For thinking that we don't know any better than to stand in the path of a falling tree, Gawain replied Gaheris with a mischievous smile lurking around the corners of his mouth.

Gareth laughed and after a moment Mordred did too. "We keep this up we will never make it back to court in time for dinner."

"Agreed," Gaheris replied, picking up one of the hand-axes as he did so.

"Hey," Gareth interrupted. "I picked out the tree I should be the one to cut it down."

"You're too little and too small,' Gareth, "Wait till you're older." Gaheris said fondly.

"Why does everyone always tell me that?" griped Gareth.

"Because it's true," said Mordred.

Gaheris began to go to work on their chosen tree, the smacks of metal on wood reverberating throughout the copse. His breath puffing in and out of his lungs forming a white wispy cloud around his hooded head. At one point he stopped long enough to push the hood back as his body temperature rose. At least, the yew tree fell with a loud crack and a boom.

The tree tottered once or twice but did not fall, standing just out of plumb with its natural alignment. They were four collective gasps, and then a silence, and then the tree swayed back and forth at least three more times before it fell, at last, crashing to the ground with a boom.

And then it was all over except the shouting.

The others trimmed the excess parts that they would not need and all helped lash the tree to the sled and turned back the way that they had come to bring it home for the Main Hall at Camelot.  
Mordred found himself smiling, and his back was sweaty and the inside of his gloves was sticky from tree resin, and there was an unaccustomed feeling which at the moment he did not care analyze at all. It felt suspiciously like happiness. It was an unaccustomed sensation, but most welcome.


End file.
